There are a wide variety of electrical connector assemblies which include male and female or plug and receptacle connectors which are designed to be mated in confronting relation. The connectors are movably mated together and, when mated, the connectors are rigidly coupled and cannot move relative to each other. Therefore, any vibrations or extraneous impacts applied to one of the connectors is transmitted to the other connector.
There are various applications wherein rigidly coupled connectors are undesirable and create problems. In other words, it is highly undesirable for vibrations or impacts to be transmitted from one connector to the mated connector. This is particularly true when the connectors are mounted to various other electronic components such as circuit boards or other substrates.
For instance, in a portable telephone assembly, the telephone may be coupled to an associated battery through a pair of mating connectors, and the telephone and battery, in turn, may be mounted to a pair of circuit boards or substrates. If the telephone is inadvertently dropped and strikes the floor or ground, the impact may cause a malfunction or damage to electronic components mounted on the circuit boards on which the mating connectors are fixed. Therefore, it is desirable to provide some form of relative floating movement between the mating connectors, and this has become increasingly difficult with the increase in miniaturization or down-sizing of such electronic devices. The present invention is directed to solving these problems in a new construction of a pair of mating connectors having floating movement therebetween.